Getty acquires Luis de Morales
April 18 2025
Picture: Getty
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Getty in Los Angeles has announced its acqusiton of Luis de Morales's Christ Carrying the Cross.
As The Art Newspaper has pointed out, the work appeared as a 'sleeper' at Nagel back in 2021 where it was catalogued as 'Morales or Studio (Attributed to)' and went on to make 1,180,000 EUR over its 10,000 EUR estimate. The acquisition was made through the Daniel Katz Gallery.
According to their press release:
After an extensive conservation treatment, the painting will go on view May 1, 2025 in the Getty Center Museum’s North Pavilion gallery 205.
“Referred to as ‘El Divino’ by early sources, Luis de Morales’s devotional paintings are the most intense expression of the salvational trauma that religious paintings were intended to convey,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “The exquisite detailing of Christ’s features, hair, tears, and bloodstained forehead commend this as a major masterpiece of 16th-century Spanish painting, and a powerful proclamation of the Catholic faith as espoused by the great Spanish mystics.”
